


wrap around your dreams

by dizzy, waveydnp



Series: we're all dying anyway 2019 daily fic advent [15]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, past phil/charlie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21867262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: Phil has a dream about the past.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: we're all dying anyway 2019 daily fic advent [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559167
Comments: 15
Kudos: 154





	wrap around your dreams

Phil boards the bus without knowing where it is he’s going. There’s no driver today, and Phil doesn’t pay his fare. He floats to a spot down the back and slides into his seat, looking out the window at the clouds that obscure his view of the scenery.

It’s nice, he thinks. Makes him feel light, like he weighs nothing at all. The bus starts moving and Phil leans his head against the glass. It’s a smooth ride, like they’re gliding down streets of silk.

At the next stop, a boy with brown hair gets on the bus and butterflies flutter gently up from Phil’s stomach. He opens his mouth and their colourful wings fly them out the door into the pale candy floss fog that blankets this Manchester morning.

The boy sits next to Phil, turning big brown eyes on him and smiling a smile that makes Phil feel warm all over. 

“Charlie,” Phil says. It feels like it’s been forever and no time at all since the last time they looked at each other like this. He’s happy and sad, his heart skittering nervous and quick in his chest when Charlie slips his hand into Phil’s.

“Come on,” Charlie says. He sounds just as cheeky as Phil remembers, though maybe a little less angry. He stands up and tugs at Phil’s hand until he follows.

They stand in the aisle of the bus. Charlie looks the same and Phil looks different. Charlie looks good and god - Phil’s missed him. He didn’t know that before now but now he knows it. Charlie tips up on his toes and wraps Phil up in a hug that feels close and far away at the same time, like he’s holding a ghost in his arms.

Charlie lays his cheek down on Phil’s shoulder. It’s a beautiful hello after so many years of being strangers.

Why are they strangers? Phil can’t remember that part. He only knows how he used to feel when he looked at Charlie’s face, and he knows that it doesn’t feel any different now. It still untethers him to think that a boy like this wants to know Phil’s thoughts and share his space. 

A door shuts firmly and Phil’s eyes fly open. His heart is in his throat and his body is heavy like it’s weighted down with a thousand pounds of sand.

“Phil, what the fuck, are you sleeping?” Dan’s voice is suddenly there, loud and anachronistic in the timeless dream world still wrapping its hazy tendrils around the edges of Phil’s consciousness. “You’re supposed to be writing.”

Phil sits up on the sofa. “What time is it?” 

“Almost four,” Dan says. “You’re not allowed a nap if I’m not. Rules, bub. We’ve got rules.” 

Dan’s joking but Phil doesn’t really feel like laughing. He feels disgruntled, upset at being torn away from that strange strong feeling of belonging. Dan’s face is the most familiar one in the world to him on any given moment of any given day but his dream didn’t know that and now his chest aches in a peculiar way. 

He even closes his eyes again, resting his head back against the throw pillow on the sofa. 

“Are you seriously going back to sleep?” Dan asks. 

Phil squeezes his eyes shut tighter. “No,” he says. 

“I don’t believe you.” Dan sits down at the end of the sofa and pulls Phil’s feet onto his lap. 

Phil isn’t sure why he wants to cry a bit. The further he steps back into wakefulness, the more a nagging feeling of guilt is starting to cloud the strangely euphoric feeling of peace he’d felt being held by someone he honestly doesn’t actually miss.

The dream made him miss Charlie. Or - maybe that’s not it. He knows he doesn’t miss actual Charlie Casey. That person was angry and lashing out and Phil probably won’t ever forgive him for choosing to target his venom at Dan. 

But he misses something. 

Usually when he feels this out of sorts, the first thing he wants to do is talk to Dan about it. Dan, who’s sat next to him on the sofa, whose lap makes an excellent stool for Phil’s feet, whose thumb is digging deliciously firm circles into the arch of a sole. 

Phil can’t talk to Dan about missing Charlie, or missing whatever dream-Charlie represents. More even than can’t, he _won’t_. 

So he’ll let the feeling fade. Later he’ll replace today’s dream with tonight’s, and by tomorrow, Charlie’s ghost will float back to the recesses of Phil’s memory where it belongs.

He yawns and digs his toes gently into Dan’s thigh. Dan is flesh and blood, and he’s right here. 

He’s looking at Phil, head tilted in amusement. “What’s up with you?”

Phil shrugs. “I had a nice dream.”


End file.
